Massive characterisation of pollutant emissions produced by on-road traffic in Krakow
In June 2019 Opus conducted the first remote sensing project in Poland. 144,000 vehicles were measured in 14 days.
Opus RSE partnered with polish local company TurboSpec to carry out the project.
The reults have helped the authorities to find out some incredible facts about the city's private and public circulating fleet.
Faster than ever
The project had to start 10 days after granting the project to Opus and Turbospec. Together we had to do the project planning, prepare the delivery of the equipment, secure the permits for measuring and all related project preparations in a record time.
The project was executed on time, with no delay and incredible results. The measurements were also done during an extreme heatwave and with some heavy rainy days.
Locations
The Remote Sensing Devices were placed at 10 different locations in Krakow. This mobility can only be achieved with Opus RSD, which is small and easy to set-up. The system is deployed and calibrated to start measuring in 20 minutes.
The measurement sites represent important traffic areas inside and around the city, with the aim of making a representative characterisation of on-road traffic emissions.
Some locations were selected to measure more buses, in order to analyze more closely this type of vehicle.
FIELD CAMPAIGN
Results
The official report, published by the Krakow public administration, is in polish and accessible online in the following link:
http://mobilnykrakow.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Badania-spalin-Krakow_final.pdf
It was particularly relevant finding that the average emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Particulate Matter (PM) from the public buses were really low, even compared with the typical passenger car circulating in the city.
On the other hand, we found out a serious problem with the private buses. In Krakow the local buses are operated by the City Council, but there are also many regional buses that belong to private companies which circulate by the city streets and motorways. There is no strong control over these companies. We discovered that emissions from private buses are much higher than the equivalent public buses. This shows there is a serious maintenance issue.
Krakow fleet distribution:
NOx traffic emissions:
PM traffic emissions:
The results of the project helped to shape the current Low Emission Zone, which begins operations on 1 January 2020. Thanks to the information from the RSDs, the access rules will be quickly tightened up. The LEZ Barcelona/City environmental zone covers an area of around 92 km² in the municipality of Barcelona, so it will be one of the largest Low Emission Zones in Europe.
